Proper cleaning of a firearm after use is essential to ensuring the firearm retains its accuracy, safety, and reliability. With each firing, the breech and bore of a firearm accumulate residue such as powder, priming compound, paper, plastic and fiber linings and wadding, and copper fragments from ammunition casings. In addition, environmental elements such dirt, snow, and moisture can accumulate in the bore, causing further fouling. Fouling and debris may also accumulate in the firearm's action due to its design, or improper maintenance. Failure to remove the residue and debris results in a decrease in the firearm's accuracy and precision, and may even pose a safety hazard to the operator. Therefore, proper cleaning is one of the most important elements of firearm ownership.
Civilians who shoot and clean firearms often devise their own storage cases to store firearm cleaning materials. An example is an empty ammunition can. In many instances, firearm owners also fashion their own tools to aide in the cleaning process. However, these homemade storage cases and cleaning tools are generally not portable or lightweight. When cleaning a firearm, components or cleaning tools may be set aside during the cleaning process and, due to their small size, may be misplaced or lost. Therefore, civilians have a need for a lightweight and compact firearm cleaning kit that stores cleaning tools and provides additional storage capability.
The military, police forces, and security companies use various types of weapons, including handguns, shotguns, semi-automatic rifles, assault rifles, machine guns, and grenade launchers, referred to herein collectively as “guns,” “weapons,” or “firearms”. Military personnel and law enforcement officers need to be able to clean their weapons in the field, preferably immediately after shooting so that their firearm is ready for use at all times. An important aspect of the cleaning process is that the cleaning kit be compact and lightweight, organized, and able to store firearm components or spare tools and cleaning supplies. Therefore, military personnel also need a lightweight and compact firearm cleaning kit that stores cleaning tools and provides additional storage capability for the cleaning of military weapons.
Cleaning a weapon typically requires some disassembly of the weapon in order to gain access to component surfaces and mechanisms that are otherwise within a firearm, such as the firing chamber and receiver. Under field conditions, it can be difficult to keep track of disassembled components, and to keep cleaned components free of dirt before being reassembled.
Military personnel need to be able to clean their weapons in the field, preferably immediately after shooting so that their firearm is ready for use at all times. An important aspect of the cleaning process is that the cleaning kit be compact and lightweight, organized, and able to store firearm components or spare tools and cleaning supplies. Therefore, military personnel also need a lightweight and compact firearm cleaning kit that stores cleaning tools and provides additional storage capability for the cleaning of military weapons. The number and variety of cleaning tools required for cleaning all the types of weapons that a soldier may be called upon to use can number in the dozens, comprising multiple types of brushes, scrapers, picks, punches, patches, swabs, rods, cables, backings which may be proprietary, attachment mechanisms, and the like, referred to collectively herein as “tools”. A full kit of all such tools can weigh several pounds and be very bulky, encumbering a soldier unduly. It has been estimated that a combat loaded infantryman carries between sixty and eighty pounds of field equipment, including firearm and ammunition.
To answer the need for portable, compact, and lightweight storage cases for firearm cleaning materials and tools, many different types of firearm cleaning kits have been designed for military and consumer use. Specialized, compact cleaning kits have been custom-designed to store the precise tools and components needed to thoroughly clean a particular firearm. For example, firearm cleaning tool kits have been designed to store specific cleaning tools such as brushes, picks, scrapers, and rods.
On any given field deployment or mission, however, a soldier may need only a small fraction of all the tools available in the kit, and the cleaning tools that will be needed may in some instances be determined in advance of the deployment or mission. Thus, a need exists for a convenient and configurable gun cleaning tool kit that can provide a flexible combination of the tools needed for a specific mission, together with a compact case for taking such subsets and combinations of the tools on one's person, but which also includes a case having a full complement of cleaning tools and supplies in a transportable tool kit that provides the full range of tools and accessories required for cleaning a full range of weapons in the field during an extended deployment, for example, at a forward operation base or location.